Ferrari AF Corse scored its first Hypercar win on home soil today in Imola, after a captivating six hours of racing in which the battle for track position and variations in tyre strategy created a dramatic multi-brand fight for the win.
The #51 499P of James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi claimed the famous victory for the fabled brand. But the pole-sitters were made to work for their first visit to the top step of the podium since the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours late in the race, after controlling the first three hours.
Two safety car periods for incidents at Rivazza, one in the second hour for a big off for Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin and a second in hour four after an incident involving Valentino Rossi’s WRT BMW M4 and Simon Mann’s AF Corse Ferrari 296, kept the Hypercar runners bunched up.
The resets blunted the pace advantage the 499Ps had enjoyed all weekend, and handed the other contending brands – Toyota, BMW and Porsche – a chance to seize track position on the narrow, unforgiving circuit, with gambles on tyre strategy.
Penske’s #6 963 of Kevin Estre took a turn in the lead, as did Toyota’s #8 GR010 of Sebastien Buemi and the #20 WRT BMW of Sheldon van der Linde in the closing stages. But in the end, the #51 prevailed.
Pier Guidi stayed calm and collected at the end, managing a full set of soft Michelin tyres for the final two hours, emerging from the pit lane with a 16-second lead after the final flurry of short fuel stops, before taking the chequered flag 8.4 seconds clear.
“It was just amazing. It’s been a long time, but the team did a superb job with the strategy, and everything went to plan. I am over the moon to win in Italy,” Calado said after he and his teammates took the lead in the Drivers’ World Championship.
Giovinazzi added: “I think, first of all, it’s been a superb weekend. Since Friday, we’ve always been on top. Today, I think the team did a fantastic job.
“Since the start with James, then were a lot of FCYs and Safety Cars, and we were always able to make the right decision. That is not easy at all. But again, thanks to the team. The car was fantastic. My teammates were fantastic, and the Tifosi were fantastic.”
Behind, the #20 BMW Team WRT M Hybrid V8 of Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns and Rene Rast, after a rollercoaster day, nabbed second with a series of clever strategy calls in the final hours. It capped off a strong weekend for the German brand’s factory team, in which it may have found a way to get both its cars onto the podium had the #15 not suffered a loss in downforce and pace towards the end.
“If you’d have said to me on Friday or Saturday that we could finish second here,” BMW Motorsport boss Andreas Roos said post-race, “I’d have signed immediately!
“Ferrari still won, congratulations to them, but it was an intense race. At one stage, it was read who would make the podium because of the strategies. We kept cool with the #20, even after it sustained damage, and maximised the performance of the car.
“We have to analyse the issue for the #15, we lost track position, but in general, we are super happy to get on the podium with the #20.”
The #36 Alpine A424 of Jules Gounon, Mick Schumacher and Frédéric Makowiecki also emerged as a contender late on, utilising the soft Michelin compound and short fuelling to take third, completing the podium.
Off the rostrum, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P, which started alongside the #51 factory example on the front row, lost key track position in the fourth hour with a longer stop for a tyre change and never fully recovered. Robert Kubica brought the car home fourth, unable to deliver a double podium for the ‘Prancing Horse’ in front of the Tifosi.
Toyota’s best-placed GR010 HYBRID was the #8, which came home fifth following a superb defensive drive from Sebastien Buemi with the end in sight. The Swiss held off the hard-charging #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco in the final hour while the two cars ran off sequence. He also eventually survived contact with the Italian at Tamburello, which sent both cars into the gravel.
That caused a puncture that cost the #50, which started last, a points finish. It was a hugely disappointing end to a tough weekend for the Qatar-winning trio after Antonio Fuoco’s error in qualifying forced them to fight their way through the field at the start.
Nicklas Nielsen’s push early in the race to make up ground, in which he climbed from 18th to sixth in the first two hours, was all for nought as the #50 dropped to 15th after its unexpected visit to the pit lane.
Porsche’s Penske Motorsport’s 963s also lost ground late in the race. #6 drivers Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Matt Campbell will leave Italy particularly frustrated. Their dream run to the lead via clever strategy calls and a sprinkle of luck from the safety cars unravelled in the closing stages. A lack of pace led to an eighth-place finish, ahead of the #5 that failed to finish in the top 10.
“The main thing is that we didn’t have any pace,” a deflated Vanthoor said. “By staying out of trouble at the beginning and making good strategy choices, we managed to climb up and be there, but then we messed it all up and dropped back. We’ll have to look at it.”
Masterful Manthey denies WRT a historic win
In LMGT3, the fight for first at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari also went down to the wire, with Richard Lietz holding off a feisty attack from Kelvin van der Linde to deliver Manthey 1st Phorm a fine victory in the #92 Porsche.
The #92 crew of Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Ryan Hardwick climbed the order seemingly from nowhere late in the race, after key contenders fell foul of a combination of penalties and/or costly incidents.
“It was definitely too much stress for me!” Lietz said. “To be honest, I heard via the voice from the engineer that it could be difficult in the end, because I had to manage things quite a bit. We took the riskiest attitude to do the double stint at the end of the race.
“From our perspective, we had to be a bit riskier than the others, and therefore it was just enough, which is for sure nice for the spectators and a good show, but for the drivers and the engineers, it was a lot of stress. I want to thank the Italians here because they were not too harsh on us for beating the #46, but it was so close.”
Van der Linde’s push for the lead from ninth late on came after the #46 WRT BMW crew, who dominated multiple chunks of the race, were handed a stop-go for Valentino’s involvement in the clash with Simon Mann.
A clumsy move up the inside while fighting for the lead with just over two hours left, eliminated the podium-hunting #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari when it was sent spinning into the tyres at Rivazza 2. The penalty didn’t cost the #46 team a top-three finish, but it did ultimately cost Rossi a historic first FIA WEC win from pole in front of his home fans.
The two AKKODIS ASP Lexus RC F LMGT3s ended up third and fourth – the #78 ahead of the #87 – after a hugely encouraging performance all weekend from Jerome Policand’s team, which looks to have taken major strides forward with its cars since the end of its rough 2024 campaign.
Davide Rigon salvaged a fifth-place finish for Vista AF Corse in the #54 296 GT3, crossing the line just ahead of the two TF Sport Corvettes, which did well to claim points on a weekend when raw speed wasn’t there for the Z06 LMGT3.Rs.
“We haven’t had the pace of the front-runners all week, but it was a super and faultless race. Not one mistake between us,” Charlie Eastwood, who finished sixth in the #81, said. “Both Tom (van Rompuy) and Rui (Andrade) – especially Rui’s middle stint, really kept us in it – were strong. There were some tough battles out there, for sure.
“Whenever you’re lacking pace, you obviously feel like you’re on the back foot. But we got the elbows out and pushed as much as we could to the flag.”
Heart of Racing may have earned a strong result with its #27 Vantage, which showed pace all weekend. But Ian James ended up in the barriers at Rivazza hard after being nerfed by The Bend WRT’s Yasser Shahin in the second hour of the race while battling for sixth.
The Vantage was an on-the-spot retirement, with James thankfully unhurt, and the BMW continued, eventually receiving a stop-go penalty en route to finishing a disappointing 12th.
The 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps is up next, on May 10th 2025.
